Popular misconceptions about your area(s) of expertise...

[klown]

"should of" when they mean "Should have."

Now I am not usually a grammar Nazi, but this one annoys me quite a bit.

OT: As a biologist almost every popular belief goes against the fact.

Discussion about what is a fruit and what is a berry is kinda silly since fruit is the general term while berry is the specific one. Berries, nuts, drupes are all fruits.

Evolution is a turf where almost everyone who believes in it don't really understand it. Now I wont go into details into this one or else someone who knows less than me will try to tell me I'm wrong about it.

You are wrong about evolution man, it was aliens man...

-snip-

I get that one about why doesn't my ps3 or xbox read disks anymore at least twice a week at work now that they know I'm a gamer. Like I'm going to know why your ps3 doesn't work right from 30 miles away, while you use describing words like "I don't know, I put the disk in and everything."

 

[Guffe]

Well not sure I'm an expert on too many things but:

WE DO NOT RIDE POLAR BEARS OR MOOSE TO SCHOOL IN FINLAND!!!
[sub][sub]Now I got that of my chest[/sub][/sub]

 

[tce11]

Astrophysics: "Oh wow you get to just look at stars for a living." Uh, no, most of my time is spent in front of a computer, either programming or doing analysis. I've been working on a project for months now, and the closest I've done to looking at a star is look at large tables of already collected stellar data.

Physics: "You just come up with crazy unprovable theories." The goal is always to prove theories through math and experiments, not just make something up that has no way of being proved false.
Or: "You must just do tons of math." Well, yeah, but a lot of it is doing awesome experiments and writing about said experiments as well!

 

[Dfskelleton]

Being a student, I don't really have a particular area of expertise yet. However, I do have a very extensive knowledge and understanding of many classical works (for my age), particularly Dante's Divine Comedy, which I read and studied on my own free time (as opposed to doing so for school)

One day, a friend and I were at lunch discussing epic poetry, and eventually, Dante came up. As we were talking about it, another guy at our table who had been listening in asks me, completely honest, "So in the end, does he save Beatrice?"

Never before have I felt such an urge to punch through a solid surface. Not any solid surface in particular, just as long as it was simultaneously solid and a surface.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

As an artist I deal with tons of misconceptions about art. The big one that bothers me is when people say something like "I was just never talented enough to be an artist." No one was ever born with innate artistic talent. Becoming an artist means learning all the techniques for rendering an image, developing thematic and philosophical content, practicing a lot, and having the patience to work on a painting for the ridiculous amount of time that it takes to make a good painting. It's not talent, it's hard work, and it's frustrating to hear that get dismissed.

And while I don't work in pure abstraction myself, I do find it offensive when people outright dismiss artists like Pollock or Rothko because they don't understand enough about the art world to know how to look at them in the first place. Yes, there are some talentless hacks who have used abstraction to get away with being lazy, but that's no reason to dismiss an entire genre inhabited by some truly driven artists.

f

How can you praise artists for hard work and then get pissed that people don't like Pollack in the same post?

Pollack pissed on a canvas and sells it for a bajillion dollars. A smart man? Yes. Talented? Objectively no.

And not ALL artists have to use hard work to get where they are. Prodigies exist for painting/drawing just like with musical instruments, mathematics, etc.

This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. First off, if you've never seen a Pollock in person, then you've never seen a Pollock. Period. What you see in a picture looks like it took a lot less time than the painting actually did. Secondly, there is the element of the emotional content which is considered as part of the work in the case of Pollock. A Pollock is valuable because it's an artifact of the way in which a man lived. Pollock wasn't pissing about, there's a real genuineness to his paintings which is different from that of the scheisters who've imitated his style over the years. It is impossible to create a Pollock without actually being Jackson Pollock.

Secondly, I can't deny that there are occasionally cases of savants who possess technical skill which they have not worked hard to acquire. That said, I can not think of one case of a savant whose paintings have come to be of good reputation in the art world. Strong thematic content requires work regardless of whether or not you're a savant. Anyone whose paintings show up in a textbook has worked hard in one way or another (at least until you get into postmodernism, but that's a story I have zero desire to get into).

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I'd hardly say I was an expert, but I'm doing a degree in building surveying. Some people seem to think that means 'I am learning to be a builder'. That's about it really, but I do seem to be getting in far too many debates about music. And not just opinions stuff, things like who wrote Hurt and whether or not all metal is about satan.

 

[purf]

I've worked in photographic enhancement, and the number of times I've been presented with a shitty little thumbnail and requested to somehow turn it into a high quality, poster-sized image is beyond belief.

I'm sorry, this ain't CSI.

Yeah me too. Most of our clients are dumb asses, thanks to the advent of digital cameras, the pros are much harder to find these days.


I had one woman who wanted a 15kb thumnail blown up to A2 haha.

Yeah, stuff like this. And I believe this going to be an ever growing problem as more and more people gain an understanding and/or are being shown of what is possible in our (wider) field - whether it's actually possible or CSI-possible - but still remain completely oblivious to 1) what it takes to get from the realm of possibilities to the actual thing and 2) what's more, what is just not possible.

Spoiler: my slightly exaggerated example...

... but I frequently have to deal with people who seem to think that it only needs a(!) projector and a computer and something like the above will - somehow - magically manifest itself.

 

[unoleian]

I can't stand people who throw words and pictures together randomly and have the temerity to call themselves "designers." Just because you got your hands on Photoshop Elements and Microsoft Publisher doesn't suddenly make you an expert and too many people think this field begins and ends at general aesthetics. There's quite a bit more than most people ever even think about in the work needed to come out with a killer document, but at least I can shake my head and smirk silently when someone submits their "professional" creation for print and get back a grainy, muddy, pixelated, and badly cropped mess in return. Oh, and of course, you have to blame it on the printer when it happens because it "didn't look like that on the monitor."

It's definitely a field that's been taken over by professional amateurs, and the results I often see speak for themselves. If you don't even know how be aware of even basic things like two different color modes and simple DPI requirements for starters, don't even begin. Seriously. Annoys me to no end, these people.

 

[Sunrider]

People rambling about how everything in music is subjective. Sorry, but no.

 

[Quaxar]

I'd hardly say I was an expert, but I'm doing a degree in building surveying. Some people seem to think that means 'I am learning to be a builder'.

Must be some stupid people. Even from the name it is quite obvious that you look at others building.

THEY ARE CALLED PTEROSAURS, NOT PTERODACTYLS!

B-but pterosaur is the order and pterodactyl a genus...
Also, it sounds a lot cooler.

 

[Harley Q]

I'm a social scientist, my areas of expertise are psychology and sociology. Whenever I say social science, I always get the response "so you work in a lab?" When I mention psychology, people either tend to get shifty and worried or they expect me to be able to induce/deduce everything about them within 5 minutes like I'm Sherlock Holmes playing Guess Who?

Not many people bother about the sociology, unless they are accusing me of being a communist.

EDIT-Pet Peeve, people confusing schizophrenia with split personality disorder. I mainly blame the movies for that one. I don't want to correct you but if you keep saying that it's schizophrenia then I'm going to have to hit you in the face with a fish. It's unorthodox but it's how I roll.

 

[Saulkar]

I've worked in photographic enhancement, and the number of times I've been presented with a shitty little thumbnail and requested to somehow turn it into a high quality, poster-sized image is beyond belief.

I'm sorry, this ain't CSI.

This is for your pain.

When it comes to 3D Modeling and Animating the amount of not just excusable ignorance but of the sheer misconceptions of how this field works is staggering! When people start 3D modeling and animation they make the assumption that you can create Transformers overnight because the computer does most of the work for you, it is a skill-less because the computer does most of the work for you, creating a 3D model takes mere seconds and a couple of fancy keystrokes, you can Render Hollywood CGI level effects in real time, and that no creativity is involved because a computer is a cold machine. It is a very, very, hot machine; Without the proper cooling.

I have seen in numerous movies a supposed CGI artist be asked to produce a 3D model, they press a couple of keys and have complete human being or unique monster (they did not load an already existing model), they then proceeded to tweak said model by pressing a couple of buttons to vastly change its appearance. You can do all of this in 3D modeling but each and every state has to be created first by hand, you just cannot create algorithms at this time that can make complex changes to organic models to make them suddenly take the appearance of someone in a photograph or from descriptions alone. Morphing between individual dragon heads requires that each head have been created first then stored in the meta-data of the model/scene.

 

[Epicspoon]

Can I say my area of expertise is video games since it's what I'm best at?
Yeah I'll go with that.

I got black ops 2 on the day of release and on the new zombies map there's a sermi auto pistol on the ceiling of the bus which is first. (both with pistol as a wall weapon and a wall weapon being on the ceiling)
So when my teammates died and bled out they were watching me play and when I used the pistol (they were all in a party I think) they told me they were going to report me for modding unless I used mods to make them invincible and get them to round 99 so they could get to the top of the leaderboards.

so yeah.......

needless to say I didn't get banned or even suspended but that was stupid as hell.

 

[saintdane05]

On the topic of game testing:

<youtube=cjCo2I3ooK0>

That is not game testing.

Game testing usually involves playing through broken, glitchy, half finished junk. Five minutes of glitchy, half finished junk. Not a full game, just five minutes. What then happens is taht you play it again, so the designers will know how to fix their broken, glitchy, half finished junk. You play it again. And again. And again. Often, those five minutes of broken, glitchy, half finished junk? Not gonna be released. So, you just wasted days of your life playing broken, glitchy, half finished junk.

Have fun.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I'd hardly say I was an expert, but I'm doing a degree in building surveying. Some people seem to think that means 'I am learning to be a builder'. That's about it really, but I do seem to be getting in far too many debates about music. And not just opinions stuff, things like who wrote Hurt and whether or not all metal is about satan.

This, I always kept getting called an Architect student when I was doing surveying because that is the only non builder construction profession they know. Also the amount of people asking about planning permissions, right to light and all that other stuff they don't understand but heard on diy show on TV once. I had my neighbour ask whether the shed the guy who's garden backed onto her's was blocking her light and could she get the LA involved to stop it. It was a bloody shed! If the guy was building a giant black monolith at the garden she might have had a point, but a shed slightly taller than the garden fence? You've got to be kidding me.

 

[DoPo]

As a tabletop gamer, I'm often annoyed by people confusing my hobby with LARP, and confusing LARP with what they saw in the film 'Role Models' it's somewhat frustrating to keep having to explain that no, I don't spend my weekends running round the park in a cape waving a stick like an excitable 8-year old.

Oh fuck, that's annoying. I certainly know it is. I was on a job interview (well, actually a mock one, but whatever) and the guy there saw I was into role playing on my CV and said he was used to seeing us when he walks his dog in the park...

I hear the reenactors have that problem with being confused for LARPers.

EDIT-Pet Peeve, people confusing schizophrenia with split personality disorder.

Ahem, it's actually called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), even then, that's the old name and has been renamed to Dissociative Personality Disorder (DID). I also hate the schizophrenia thing. As well as dementia - it's not general fun/insanity nor is it some sort of "forgetfulness". I lived for three years with my grandfather who had dementia, my mother works in a retirement home for people with dementia - I am quite aware of what is and isn't one.

Now, yeah, you're allowed to joke about schizophrenia/DID/dementia - I don't mind, but at least don't misrepresent them.

Computer Science. Every time someone in some medium is a "hacker" or "computer expert"

Actually, to build on that, people should just stop using "hackers" when they mean "crackers". It just infuriates me - they are just giving some guys too much credit, as in "Hackers DDoSed a web page" ...yeah, "hackers". For the record, that's like saying "Heart surgeons stabbed somebody repeatedly with a knife" - you don't need any sort of expertise to do either task.

And more on computer science/programming - just because something seems easy to you, doesn't mean it's that easy to code. "It's just a minor thing, why don't you add it" - fuck you, no - it's not you deciding if it's minor or not. Yes, it could be but also you could be an absolute idiot. I worked as a web developer for a while - the number of times we've had clients saying "Oh, can you just add X" and expect it would take, like 5 minutes, just because it's, say, another item on the menu of a website...when it would actually mean adding a whole new module to the system, configure it, maybe even write parts of it (or all of it) from scratch, test it, come up with a suitable front end design. Or alternatively

(before release)
"Are you happy with what you have now?"
"Oh, yes, quite happy"
"Do you see any mistakes? Or maybe anything missing?"
"No, no, it's fine"
"Are you sure? Do you want us to go live as it is?"
"Yes, of course - go ahead"

(a day after release)
"Hmm, it looks good but I found some things I want changed" *lists a dozen corrections ranging from bugs to just different customization - minor but would still take at least an hour or so* "Also, I think it would be better if we have these" *lists several outright changes in core functionality and/or completely new stuff* "So can I have them fixed as soon as possible?"

 

[PromethianSpark]

Too many kids pretending they have an expertise. I feel for the OP. I am PhD in sociology. We specialise in the subject matter that every idiot has an opinion of.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Hello there, computer scientist here. As such I am an expert on every program on your computer, and can fix every issue you have with it. I will NOT under any circumstances just google your problem, something that is within everyone's capabilities to do.

Also, I wouldn't call this my expertise but having taken a couple courses on logic and philosophy I do know a fair bit of about the subject. What constantly bothers me is how a lot of people use the word objectively. *cough* syzygy23*cough* Objectively isn't just an opinion that you feel really strongly about, it's something that can be proven absolutely.